Excuses, Excuses
by kasieli
Summary: Justifying an action or a word means there's something underlying that is not being addressed. Of course Damian Wayne would find himself in this predicament when he soon realizes his strange attraction to his team's mysterious empath. {Vignette style, some short, some long, some funny, some angsty, but all with a DamianxRaven flair.}


A/N: Hello wonderful human beans! First of all, thanks so much for those of you that favorite and follow and leave comments on my other works, I highly appreciate and love each and every one of you all!

Secondly, Thanks again to **bookaholicpt** (tumblr) for our countless DamiRae ideas. Damian trying to justify his feelings for Raven in logical terms is something we'd been talking about, as well. Since the writing style and vignette format allowed me to be a little experimental with it, I decided to give a little vignette a go.

Third of all, again, they're aged, think around 16-17 again. And yes this is (and will all be) written in first person Damian's perspective. (I mainly chose first person because a novel I'm reading right now uses it - and let me tell you, he _masters_ it - and I'm trying to emulate his style a little bit, other than the fact it's the easiest perspective to write). Buuut I am learning. It's been a while since I've seriously touched first person view, so I don't think Damian's narrative voice is coming through as I well as wanted it to, but I do like it, so I'm not going to alter it any further. Plus I have many more vignettes to perfect it.

Fourth of all, rating is due to cursing.

OKAY LONG RAMBLE IS DONE!

Without further ado, I present to you, *takes a huge breath* my-shitty-fic!

Disclaimer: Don't own em don't make money yup yup yup

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"Can't sleep either?" I asked without the need to turn my head.

In her usual Raven-esque manner, she sat down beside me, swift and smoothly, uttering one small, single word.

"Nope."

She spoke in that kind of voice she used when she was weary from battle. She spoke in that kind of voice she used when Beast Boy won a game of Monopoly they were playing and she had to reluctantly wash an extra round of dishes that week, cursing him off the whole time. She spoke in that voice I knew, on any other occasion, without the need of a trigger, she _only_ used around me.

Her voice scratchy, tired, but gentle, she said, "I don't think I can do it anymore, Damian." She was tracing delicate circles on her temples, hissing out a sigh. Her eyes were closed tightly and her eyebrows were sunken and for some odd reason the only reaction I had then was to help her, to wipe that expression right off her face. If there was one thing I knew Raven didn't deserve, it was all the shit she had to go through, past, present, and future. _My_ shit, in particular, but shit nonetheless.

I also knew she could handle it, though, hence why I always irked her. She herself gave no flying shits about how I annoyed her, at the very least she always did handle it quite fairly. Call it, testing her patience, if you will.

"Then quit."

Well, there you go, there's my extremely condoling reply. So much for helping her out.

To my somewhat dismay but further surprise, instead of scoffing and turning her heel hastily, she just chuckled. Just a lone, soft chuckle, almost so soft I could have mistaken it as the breeze that tickled our cheeks, or the lulling swish of the waves, but it was unmistakably Raven and it was unmistakably her chuckle.

And I heard it.

So I raised a confused eyebrow towards her direction.

If Raven didn't want you to comment on something she did, she simply wouldn't do it. It didn't entirely surprise me when she was already eyeing me keenly with those dark voids of her eyes. They always shone a somewhat purple in the light, but in the moonlight they looked plainly like a black hole, but a somewhat-beautiful-in-it's-own-weird-way black hole.

I could only stare back at them, wondering what multitudes, galaxies, experiences, _emotions_ they contained. They always said the "eyes are the window to the soul", and while I would love to say the same about Raven, the longer you stared into hers, the more perplexed you became. In them was an unreadable solemness, but she blinked once and it vanished, just like smoke.

Raven was truly an enigmatic mystery, through and through.

"Maybe I should," she hummed, turning her attention back to the city skyline.

Her voice was so soft, but so serious, and I couldn't have stopped blurting out even if I tried. "What?!"

"You suggested it."

She shrugged, another movement so minute, but the soft rustling of her cape gave it away.

I scoffed and leaned my weight into my palms, tossing my head back to observe the absence of stars dancing in the night sky. "Take a joke, Raven. _We_ need you. The _team_ needs you."

She shifted again and I heard her cape tug against the wind. Not before long, she was looking down upon me, the same unreadable solemness drowning my vision and the rest of the soft twinkling of stars. Just what was it, why was it there, and why, for the life of me, did I just want to get rid of it? She opened her mouth presumably to speak, but there was _something_ in that look that told me, screamed at me, that if I let her speak now, I would have never been able to find out what it was.

"You know you have a home here, right?" I reasoned.

She turned her eyes away, and I pushed myself back up to level her. I stepped towards her, noticing for the first time how different it was since we first met. For one, we were about the same height now, and she could no longer tease me about riding the passenger seat without the child alert blaring incessantly. And for some unexplainable, magnetic reason, we always ended up chatting nonchalantly at 3 a.m. in the morning when the nightmares of our past would render us sleepless. And before, Raven would always push me away. _Just when did she stop_? I wondered.

Maybe it was just the simple fact that Raven and I understood each other more than anyone else on the team. Maybe, for once, someone trusted me enough to confide me with information they kept shut in. Maybe for once, she didn't think I was vile or vermin or the offspring of the devil (which in some ironic turn of events, she was, albeit a _good_ devil offspring).

If I felt it, that meant Raven felt it too, and perhaps in amplitudes, being she was an empath. It was clear-cut and palpable, out of all the members of the team, the one I was closest to, was Raven. And the one Raven was closest to was...me.

I'm sure it was just because of our shared pasts. And similar way of handling certain scenarios. And maybe even our shared love for literature and animals and tea. She also never made me talk when I didn't want to, didn't make useless conversations when we were enjoying the silence, didn't pry into information I didn't allow anyone to access about me, she was just there, existing, and I was happy for it.

Maybe that's why I said what I said.

" _I'm_ here for you, Raven."

But it wasn't how the words slipped so naturally out of my mouth that surprised me. It wasn't even her catching my eyes and that unreadable solemness finally drifting away, leaving her eyes bright even in this darkness that surprised me.

It was the faintest trace of a smile and her simple words that surprised me.

" _I know_."


End file.
